The Pretenders

By Chuck Klosterman

Published: March 17, 2002

Randy Trask's hair is naturally blond. He likes it that color, and it looks just fine. It's what his hair is supposed to look like. But in his line of work, blond hair is a problem, and he knows it.

''I am going to dye my hair red,'' he assures me. ''That is definitely in the works. It's just that the last time I tried, it turned sort of pink. And for some reason, people get scared of you when you have red hair. I don't know why that is, but it's true. They just don't warm up to you the way they do if you're blond.''

Trask is telling me this at 10 minutes to midnight. We are sitting in his 1997 extended-cab Ford Ranger pickup, which we will soon be driving from Cincinnati to Harrisonburg, Va., for his gig tomorrow night. Trask is the lead singer in a band called Paradise City, and like any frontman, he cares about his image. But Trask has a whole set of concerns -- like the specific tint of his hair -- that most singers don't need to worry about. He doesn't just want to look good; he wants to look exactly like W. Axl Rose, the lead singer of Guns N' Roses, the late-80's pop-metal band that Paradise City imitates, as precisely as possible, in every show it plays.

It's roughly a 10-hour drive to Harrisonburg, so leaving in the middle of the night should get us to town just in time to check into the Hampton Inn and take an afternoon nap. There is some concern about this trip, because the last time the band stayed in Harrisonburg, they were banned for life from the Econo Lodge. They need to make sure things go smoothly at the Hampton Inn this weekend; there just aren't that many hotels in Harrisonburg to choose from.

Our pickup is idling outside the home of Paul Dischner, Trask's bandmate, who is inside, still packing for our voyage. Our conversation moves on from Trask's hair issues to larger questions. ''I initially had a problem with the idea of doing a Guns N' Roses tribute, because I didn't want anyone to think I was discrediting Axl,'' Trask says. ''That was always my main concern. If Axl was somehow against this, I'd straight-up quit. I would never do this if he disapproved. But I really think we can do his songs justice. People constantly tell me, 'You sound better than Axl,' but I always say, 'Whoa now, slow down.' Because I like the way I sing Axl's songs, but I love the way Axl sings them. That's the main thing I'm concerned about with this article: I do not want this to say anything negative about Guns N' Roses. That's all I ask.''

I am the first reporter who has ever done a story on Paradise City. This is less a commentary on Paradise City -- named after one of Guns N' Roses' biggest hits -- and more a commentary on the phenomenon of tribute bands, arguably the most universally maligned sector of rock 'n' roll. These are bands mired in obscurity and engaged in a bizarre zero-sum game: if a tribute band were to succeed completely, its members would essentially cease to exist. Their goal is not to be somebody; their goal is to be somebody else.

Though the Beatles and Elvis Presley were the first artists to spawn impersonators, the modern tribute template was set by groups like Strutter, Hotter Than Hell and Cold Gin, all of which found success in the early 90's by looking, acting and singing like the 1978 version of Kiss. It turned out that people would sooner pay $10 to see four guys pretending to be Kiss than $5 to see four guys playing original songs nobody had ever heard before. There are now hundreds -- probably thousands -- of rock bands who make a living by method acting. There's the Atomic Punks, a Van Halen tribute that celebrates the David Lee Roth era. Planet Earth are L.A.-based Duran Duran clones. Bjorn Again claims to be Australia's finest ABBA tribute. AC/DShe is an all-female AC/DC cover group from San Francisco. There are tributes to groups that weren't that popular to begin with (Badfinger, Thin Lizzy), and there are tributes to bands who are not altogether difficult to see for real (Dave Matthews Band, Creed). And though rock critics deride Stone Temple Pilots and Oasis for ripping off other artists, people pay good money to watch tribute bands rip off Stone Temple Pilots and Oasis.

Being consciously derivative is not simple; Trask and Dischner can talk for hours about the complexity of feeding their appetite for replication. There are countless qualifications that must be considered when auditioning potential members in a tribute. This was especially obvious when Paradise City had to find a new person to play Slash, GN'R's unforgettable lead guitarist. It is not enough to find a guy who plays guitar well; your Slash needs to play guitar like Slash. He needs to play a Les Paul, and he needs to tune it like Slash. He needs to have long black hair that hangs in his face. Preferably, he should have a dark complexion, an emaciated physique and a willingness to play shirtless. And if possible, he should drink Jack Daniel's.

The Slash in Paradise City fulfills about half of those requirements.

''Bobby is on thin ice right now, and he knows he's on thin ice,'' says Trask, referring to lead guitarist Bobby Young. ''I mean, he's an O.K. guy, and he's a good guitar player. But we have ads out right now for a new Slash, and he knows that. I want someone who is transfixed with being Slash. We want someone who is as sick about Slash as I am about Axl.''